


Performance

by zarabithia



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 22:40:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15301620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: It's not the first time Dick has gone undercover.





	Performance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FleetSparrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleetSparrow/gifts).



Dick has been going undercover since he was eight years old. 

He remembers, clearly, Batman telling him how dangerous it could be. "You'll start to have sympathy for them. Once you infiltrate their world, they stop being The Other. It will make you weak, and allow you to fail." 

But Batman had been wrong. Dick was an acrobat, which meant he was a performer. He loved putting on a good show. The flash of a well-constructed performance was in his blood. He never forgot the line between himself and his audience. He'd slipped on so many masks over the years. None of those roles had altered him, and when the job was over, he'd returned to his life.

Dick reminds himself of this as he returns to the headquarters he temporarily shares with Slade Wilson.

"Rose tells me you did a wonderful job out there tonight," Slade says, as though he isn't testing both Dick and Rose each time they go out together on a mission. "Though I'm sure Harper won't agree." 

Roy's face will be one that Dick will remember, but the memory is interrupted by the feel of Slade's lips on his own. 

"I'm very proud of you, my little Renegade." 

The first time Slade invited Dick to his bed, Dick went in order to fully submerge himself in the role he was playing. A desperate, lonely former sidekick looking for approval in all the wrong places.. . and it worked, because history told Dick that Slade liked bedding his apprentices. 

These days, the comfort that Dick finds there is ... less of an act.

But he has never lost himself in a performance, Dick tells himself while he lies in Slade's bed, and he ignores the part of him that warns that there is a first time for everything.


End file.
